Self-study
Conclusion Over the last 10 years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of people over the age of 65 living in this region. ████ ██ ███████ ████ ███ ████ ████ ██████ ████ ████ ███ ███████ ███ ██ ██████ ██████ ██ ████ ██████ ███ █████████ ████ █████████████ ██ ██ ██ ██████
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author concludes that over the last 10 years, there has been a significant increase in the number of people over the age of 65 living in the region. This is based on the fact that over the last 10 years, the average age of people living in the region has increased from 52 to 57 years.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes there’s no other explanation for the increase in average age besides an increase in the number of people over 65 living in the region. This overlooks the possibility that the average age increased simply due to younger people moving out of the region.
22.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ █████ ████ ██████████ ███ █████████
a
The number of ██████ ██ ███ ██████ █████ ███ ███ ██ ██ ███ █████████ ████ ███ ████ ██ ██████
This provides evidence against the explanation that the average age increased due to younger people moving out. If the number of people under 18 went up, but the average still still increased, that strongly suggests there’s a lot more older people.
b
The birth rate ███ ███ ██████ █████████ █████████████ ████ ███ ████ ██ ██████
If anything, this might weaken the argument by suggesting that we have fewer and fewer younger people in the region (due to fewer births). This would suggest the average age increase might be due simply to having fewer younger people.
c
The total number ██ ██████ ██████ ██ ███ ██████ ███ █████████ ████ ███ ████ ██ ██████
This doesn’t tell us whether the decrease in population includes an overall decrease in younger people or in older people. If there are fewer younger people, (C) could end up weakening the argument.
d
The number of ██████ ███ █████ ████ ███ ██████ ████ ███ ████ ██ █████ ██ ███████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ █████ ███ █████ ████
This tells us that the overall population has gone up. But this doesn’t help prove that the overall number of older people has significantly increased. (D) is consistent with very young people moving out and being replaced by a greater number of middle-aged people who aren’t over 65.
e
The average age ███ ██████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ ████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████████ ████████
The argument is concerned with whether the average age increase in this reason allows us to conclude that this region has a greater number of people over 65. Other regions don’t affect this argument.